How David Fincher’s serial killer film Seven is still influential 30 years on
David Fincher’s bleak, gruesome 1995 film starring Brad Pitt and Morgan Freeman has inspired the feel of many serial killer flicks since
This is the latest instalment in our From the Vault feature series, in which we reflect on culturally significant movies celebrating notable anniversaries.
From 1991’s The Silence of the Lambs to 1999’s Summer of Sam, the 1990s were a golden age for serial killer films. But few summoned such bone-deep disgust for humanity as David Fincher’s Seven (or Se7en, as it is officially stylised), which turns 30 this month.
After the failure of his debut, Alien 3, Fincher claimed, “I’d rather die of colon cancer than make another movie.” But he would prove the perfect director for Seven: dogged enough to protect Andrew Kevin Walker’s bleakly brilliant script from studio interference, while elevating it with his own doomy styling.
Walker’s screenplay was inspired by his own feelings of despair, having swapped the safety of the suburbs for the violent churn of the city.
The story centres on two detectives, the cynical Somerset (Morgan Freeman) and the idealistic Mills (Brad Pitt), as they investigate a series of artfully staged murders inspired by the seven deadly sins: gluttony, greed, sloth, lust, pride, envy and wrath.